WP Installation ONLY works on localhost

  • I’ve traditionally used XAMPP for my home development server and have never really had any problems installing or doing dev work on WordPress.

    I needed to switch over to WAMP since XAMPP quit supporting MySQL, so did all new installs on my various machines. I typically have the web server running on my laptop and then can do DB / dev work from the main workstation at home once I’ve docked the laptop.

    I’ve been doing this same thing for about a decade or so now.

    So, THIS time around, I did my installation and everything appears to work fine. I had some issues with Apache denying me access to the server if accessed from beyond localhost, but I eventually figured out how to change the permissions for that.

    Now, for each WordPress installation I’ve done, I can access it fine via localhost but NOT from the other machine. It attempts to resolve as localhost on that machine.

    Example:
    The laptop server name is rocinante. . .

    Typing “rocinante/wordpress/pao” resolves as “localhost/wordpress/pao”

    I’m confused as. . .

    Wordpress Address (URL) is https://rocinante/wordpress/pao AND
    Site Address (URL) is the same.

    My understanding is that having these URL’s correct should make it resolve correctly.

    Anything obvious I’m missing here? It’s very frustrating and making it difficult to get work done.

    Thanks in advance, guys!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • This is more of a networking question than a WordPress support issue.

    Thread Starter verisof

    (@verisof)

    No, I don’t think it is. I can reach regular HTML pages on the laptop AND I can reach the primary directory for all the wordpress sites I want to work on with no problem. So, networking isn’t an issue. There is apparently something new in WordPress itself that is preventing it from resolving the URL. And I can’t figure out what it is for the life of me.

    IP Address doesn’t work correctly either.

    Completely scratching my head on this one.

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    I agree that there has been an increasing “Only Linux matters” attitude in WP development. (There is a similar “Only Chrome matters” attitude when it comes to browsers.) But I suspect that isn’t the issue here. Please make sure the Apache virtual host in XAMPP and the HOSTS file on your laptop are configured correctly.

    Thread Starter verisof

    (@verisof)

    Thanks for the reply. Agreed with the attitude thing. LOL.

    For the record, this is the case in all browsers. Not that you implied otherwise.

    I could, of course, probably fix this by manually editing the HOSTS file on a given windows laptop. I could set a given URL to a given IP address. I don’t want to do this because I want it to serve up on any machine I happen to plug into my local network. Or if I take it to a client site to do a demo on their network.

    It’s possible I’m missing something in Apache given they changes they’ve made to security, but I don’t think so.

    I DID verify the virtual host and alias settings. In fact, it serves up the root directory as an index page just fine. /rocinante/wordpress/

    This shows me a list of all the WordPress subdirectories below (each subdirectory is a separate installation of WordPress.) I set it up this way because I keep separate installs of different templates with sample content in each of them for ease. I’ve done this for a while.

    When I drill down to the NEXT level, I get the weird decision to resolve to localhost. I can’t figure out why it would do that unless there is some hardcoded URL somewhere in the WordPress config files or if there is some URL setting in the DB I couldn’t find.

    I do know that that this is definitely a WordPress issue. Or at least, one in concert with WAMP. I just want it back the way that it used to be. “Sigh”. . . LOL

    I’m still welcoming any ideas.

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    Hmm…do you have custom permalinks enabled? If so, you should check the .htaccess file in the WP root directory. You might need to set up a RewriteCondition to exclude the laptop server name from the main WP RewriteRule.

    WordPress does in fact hardcode the site URL. It’s a signifivant source of grief for those who want to develop on one site and then show/migrate their work on/to another site. I’m putting the finishing touches on a plugin that eliminates this (unnecessary) issue.

    Thread Starter verisof

    (@verisof)

    Ah HA! I don’t have an .htaccess file in my wordpress directory. Only one for the primary Apache directory serving everything up. Is there any good guidance on setting one up manually? I’m assuming that it overrides whatever is in the current Apache .htaccess file. Yes?

    Again, thanks for the help here.

    Hello

    When you are using WordPress, and you change the permalinks, WordPress will generally will generate a .htaccess for you so that you don’t need to do it manually.

    Have this been solved.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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